Ben Carlson grew his Connecticut practice 8% last year with only five additional initial evaluations.

He demonstrated that you can grow just as quickly by retaining existing patients as you can by chasing new ones.

Through his EMR, Ben found his practice was losing patients between visits four and seven, when dramatic early improvements taper off and treatment starts feeling routine.

So Ben built reminders into the calendar, creating a system where retention became part of the treatment plan, not an afterthought.

The third week of every month, Ben's leadership team sends one message to the entire practice: 

"It's re-enrollment week."

Providers know what that means. 

They conduct thorough reviews of the care plans for every active patient, similar to initial evaluations. They reassess progress, recalibrate expectations, reconnect patient goals to treatment outcomes.

The timing catches most patients somewhere between their fourth and seventh visit, right when the momentum from those drastic early improvements typically trickle into more incremental wins.

Ben's system creates a systematic safety net that reaches patients around the typical drop-off point without requiring anyone to remember who needs a check-in.

Implementation followed four steps:

→ Identify the patient drop-off window using EMR data
→ Build the calendar trigger (third week of every month)
→ Frame it as clinical review, not retention pitch
→ Create team-wide accountability through consistent messaging

The cost of implementing this system was approximately zero. The return was 8% growth from existing patient relationships alone.

Keeping those patients engaged costs nothing. Acquiring new ones costs a lot more.

A breakdown of what in the name of AI you should actually be paying attention to:

Healthcare IT News: New EHR and Patient Record Integrations with Claude AI

EHR vendors are now embedding AI, like Anthropic’s Claude, into clinical records. This shows a key shift: AI is becoming an integrated copilot instead of an add-on tool. It can now synthesize data right where clinicians already work. As models improve, clinicians can handle more complex tasks in interfaces they know well.

Verdict: ✅ Worth paying attention to

Building off of last year’s success, we’re hosting more Practice Independence dinners where we gather a small group of clinic owners to share insights on growth, scale, and preserving independence. Upcoming events are below:

This month’s theme is around Creating Strategic Optionality – how operators can expand without needing a massive increase in administrative overhead.

Reply if you’re interested in attending. We hope to see you there.

Thanks for joining us for another edition of Practice Independence — we’ll see you in 2 weeks!

Take care, Indie

PS: Ready to revolutionize your practice? Talk to us.

Indie is on a mission to improve the quality of life for rehab providers and their patients by combining technology with world-class rehab therapy. 

Join the waitlist. We have limited spots available!